Mrs. Lirriper\'s Lodgings

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MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS


CHAPTER I--HOW MRS. LIRRIPER CARRIED ON THE BUSINESS


Whoever would begin to be worried with letting Lodgings that wasn't a
lone woman with a living to get is a thing inconceivable to me, my dear;
excuse the familiarity, but it comes natural to me in my own little room,
when wishing to open my mind to those that I can trust, and I should be
truly thankful if they were all mankind, but such is not so, for have but
a Furnished bill in the window and your watch on the mantelpiece, and
farewell to it if you turn your back for but a second, however
gentlemanly the manners; nor is being of your own sex any safeguard, as I
have reason, in the form of sugar-tongs to know, for that lady (and a
fine woman she was) got me to run for a glass of water, on the plea of
going to be confined, which certainly turned out true, but it was in the
Station-house.

Number Eighty-one Norfolk Street, Strand--situated midway between the
City and St. James's, and within five minutes' walk of the principal
places of public amusement--is my address. I have rented this house many
years, as the parish rate-books will testify; and I could wish my
landlord was as alive to the fact as I am myself; but no, bless you, not
a half a pound of paint to save his life, nor so much, my dear, as a tile
upon the roof, though on your bended knees.

My dear, you never have found Number Eighty-one Norfolk Street Strand
advertised in Bradshaw's _Railway Guide_, and with the blessing of Heaven
you never will or shall so find it. Some there are who do not think it
lowering themselves to make their names that cheap, and even going the
lengths of a portrait of the house not like it with a blot in every
window and a coach and four at the door, but what will suit Wozenham's
lower down on the other side of the way will not suit me, Miss Wozenham
having her opinions and me having mine, though when it comes to
systematic underbidding capable of being proved on oath in a court of
justice and taking the form of "If Mrs. Lirriper names eighteen shillings
a week, I name fifteen and six," it then comes to a settlement between
yourself and your conscience, supposing for the sake of argument your
name to be Wozenham, which I am well aware it is not or my opinion of you
would be greatly lowered, and as to airy bedrooms and a night-porter in
constant attendance the less said the better, the bedrooms being stuffy
and the porter stuff.

It is forty years ago since me and my poor Lirriper got married at St.
Clement's Danes, where I now have a sitting in a very pleasant pew with
genteel company and my own hassock, and being partial to evening service
not too crowded. My poor Lirriper was a handsome figure of a man, with a
beaming eye and a voice as mellow as a musical instrument made of honey
and steel, but he had ever been a free liver being in the commercial
travelling line and travelling what he called a limekiln road--"a dry
road, Emma my dear," my poor Lirriper says to me, "where I have to lay
the dust with one drink or another all day long and half the night, and
it wears me Emma"--and this led to his running through a good deal and
might have run through the turnpike too when that dreadful horse that
never would stand still for a single instant set off, but for its being
night and the gate shut and consequently took his wheel, my poor Lirriper
and the gig smashed to atoms and never spoke afterwards. He was a
handsome figure of a man, and a man with a jovial heart and a sweet
temper; but if they had come up then they never could have given you the
mellowness of his voice, and indeed I consider photographs wanting in
mellowness as a general rule and making you look like a new-ploughed
field.

My poor Lirriper being behindhand with the world and being buried at
Hatfield church in Hertfordshire, not that it was his native place but
that he had a liking for the Salisbury Arms where we went upon our
wedding-day and passed as happy a fortnight as ever happy was, I went
round to the creditors and I says "Gentlemen I am acquainted with the
fact that I am not answerable for my late husband's debts but I wish to
pay them for I am his lawful wife and his good name is dear to me. I am
going into the Lodgings gentlemen as a business and if I prosper every
farthing that my late husband owed shall be paid for the sake of the love
I bore him, by this right hand." It took a long time to do but it was
done, and the silver cream-jug which is between ourselves and the bed and
the mattress in my room up-stairs (or it would have found legs so sure as
ever the Furnished bill was up) being presented by the gentlemen engraved
"To Mrs. Lirriper a mark of grateful respect for her honourable conduct"
gave me a turn which was too much for my feelings, till Mr. Betley which
at that time had the parlours and loved his joke says "Cheer up Mrs.
Lirriper, you should feel as if it was only your christening and they
were your godfathers and godmothers which did promise for you." And it
brought me round, and I don't mind confessing to you my dear that I then
put a sandwich and a drop of sherry in a little basket and went down to
Hatfield church-yard outside the coach and kissed my hand and laid it
with a kind of proud and swelling love on my husband's grave, though
bless you it had taken me so long to clear his name that my wedding-ring
was worn quite fine and smooth when I laid it on the green green waving
grass.

I am an old woman now and my good looks are gone but that's me my dear
over the plate-warmer and considered like in the times when you used to
pay two guineas on ivory and took your chance pretty much how you came
out, which made you very careful how you left it about afterwards because
people were turned so red and uncomfortable by mostly guessing it was
somebody else quite different, and there was once a certain person that
had put his money in a hop business that came in one morning to pay his
rent and his respects being the second floor that would have taken it
down from its hook and put it in his breast-pocket--you understand my
dear--for the L, he says of the original--only there was no mellowness in
_his_ voice and I wouldn't let him, but his opinion of it you may gather
from his saying to it "Speak to me Emma!" which was far from a rational
observation no doubt but still a tribute to its being a likeness, and I
think myself it _was_ like me when I was young and wore that sort of
stays.

But it was about the Lodgings that I was intending to hold forth and
certainly I ought to know something of the business having been in it so
long, for it was early in the second year of my married life that I lost
my poor Lirriper and I set up at Islington directly afterwards and
afterwards came here, being two houses and eight-and-thirty years and
some losses and a deal of experience.

Girls are your first trial after fixtures and they try you even worse
than what I call the Wandering Christians, though why _they_ should roam
the earth looking for bills and then coming in and viewing the apartments
and stickling about terms and never at all wanting them or dreaming of
taking them being already provided, is, a mystery I should be thankful to
have explained if by any miracle it could be. It's wonderful they live
so long and thrive so on it but I suppose the exercise makes it healthy,
knocking so much and going from house to house and up and down-stairs all
day, and then their pretending to be so particular and punctual is a most
astonishing thing, looking at their watches and saying "Could you give me
the refusal of the rooms till twenty minutes past eleven the day after to-
morrow in the forenoon, and supposing it to be considered essential by my
friend from the country could there be a small iron bedstead put in the
little room upon the stairs?" Why when I was new to it my dear I used to
consider before I promised and to make my mind anxious with calculations
and to get quite wearied out with disappointments, but now I says
"Certainly by all means" well knowing it's a Wandering Christian and I
shall hear no more about it, indeed by this time I know most of the
Wandering Christians by sight as well as they know me, it being the habit
of each individual revolving round London in that capacity to come back
about twice a year, and it's very remarkable that it runs in families and
the children grow up to it, but even were it otherwise I should no sooner
hear of the friend from the country which is a certain sign than I should
nod and say to myself You're a Wandering Christian, though whether they
are (as I _have_ heard) persons of small property with a taste for
regular employment and frequent change of scene I cannot undertake to
tell you.

Girls as I was beginning to remark are one of your first and your lasting
troubles, being like your teeth which begin with convulsions and never
cease tormenting you from the time you cut them till they cut you, and
then you don't want to part with them which seems hard but we must all
succumb or buy artificial, and even where you get a will nine times out
of ten you'll get a dirty face with it and naturally lodgers do not like
good society to be shown in with a smear of black across the nose or a
smudgy eyebrow. Where they pick the black up is a mystery I cannot
solve, as in the case of the willingest girl that ever came into a house
half-starved poor thing, a girl so willing that I called her Willing
Sophy down upon her knees scrubbing early and late and ever cheerful but
always smiling with a black face. And I says to Sophy, "Now Sophy my
good girl have a regular day for your stoves and keep the width of the
Airy between yourself and the blacking and do not brush your hair with
the bottoms of the saucepans and do not meddle with the snuffs of the
candles and it stands to reason that it can no longer be" yet there it
was and always on her nose, which turning up and being broad at the end
seemed to boast of it and caused warning from a steady gentleman and
excellent lodger with breakfast by the week but a little irritable and
use of a sitting-room when required, his words being "Mrs. Lirriper I
have arrived at the point of admitting that the Black is a man and a
brother, but only in a natural form and when it can't be got off." Well
consequently I put poor Sophy on to other work and forbid her answering
the door or answering a bell on any account but she was so unfortunately
willing that nothing would stop her flying up the kitchen-stairs whenever
a bell was heard to tingle. I put it to her "O Sophy Sophy for goodness'
goodness' sake where does it come from?" To which that poor unlucky
willing mortal--bursting out crying to see me so vexed replied "I took a
deal of black into me ma'am when I was a small child being much neglected
and I think it must be, that it works out," so it continuing to work out
of that poor thing and not having another fault to find with her I says
"Sophy what do you seriously think of my helping you away to New South
Wales where it might not be noticed?" Nor did I ever repent the money
which was well spent, for she married the ship's cook on the voyage
(himself a Mulotter) and did well and lived happy, and so far as ever I
heard it was _not_ noticed in a new state of society to her dying day.

In what way Miss Wozenham lower down on the other side of the way
reconciled it to her feelings as a lady (which she is not) to entice Mary
Anne Perkinsop from my service is best known to herself, I do not know
and I do not wish to know how opinions are formed at Wozenham's on any
point. But Mary Anne Perkinsop although I behaved handsomely to her and
she behaved unhandsomely to me was worth her weight in gold as overawing
lodgers without driving them away, for lodgers would be far more sparing
of their bells with Mary Anne than I ever knew them to be with Maid or
Mistress, which is a great triumph especially when accompanied with a
cast in the eye and a bag of bones, but it was the steadiness of her way
with them through her father's having failed in Pork. It was Mary Anne's
looking so respectable in her person and being so strict in her spirits
that conquered the tea-and-sugarest gentleman (for he weighed them both
in a pair of scales every morning) that I have ever had to deal with and
no lamb grew meeker, still it afterwards came round to me that Miss
Wozenham happening to pass and seeing Mary Anne take in the milk of a
milkman that made free in a rosy-faced way (I think no worse of him) with
every girl in the street but was quite frozen up like the statue at
Charing-cross by her, saw Mary Anne's value in the lodging business and
went as high as one pound per quarter more, consequently Mary Anne with
not a word betwixt us says "If you will provide yourself Mrs. Lirriper in
a month from this day I have already done the same," which hurt me and I
said so, and she then hurt me more by insinuating that her father having
failed in Pork had laid her open to it.

My dear I do assure you it's a harassing thing to know what kind of girls
to give the preference to, for if they are lively they get bell'd off
their legs and if they are sluggish you suffer from it yourself in
complaints and if they are sparkling-eyed they get made love to, and if
they are smart in their persons they try on your Lodgers' bonnets and if
they are musical I defy you to keep them away from bands and organs, and
allowing for any difference you like in their heads their heads will be
always out of window just the same. And then what the gentlemen like in
girls the ladies don't, which is fruitful hot water for all parties, and
then there's temper though such a temper as Caroline Maxey's I hope not
often. A good-looking black-eyed girl was Caroline and a comely-made
girl to your cost when she did break out and laid about her, as took
place first and last through a new-married couple come to see London in
the first floor and the lady very high and it _was_ supposed not liking
the good looks of Caroline having none of her own to spare, but anyhow
she did try Caroline though that was no excuse. So one afternoon
Caroline comes down into the kitchen flushed and flashing, and she says
to me "Mrs. Lirriper that woman in the first has aggravated me past
bearing," I says "Caroline keep your temper," Caroline says with a
curdling laugh "Keep my temper? You're right Mrs. Lirriper, so I will.
Capital D her!" bursts out Caroline (you might have struck me into the
centre of the earth with a feather when she said it) "I'll give her a
touch of the temper that _I_ keep!" Caroline downs with her hair my
dear, screeches and rushes up-stairs, I following as fast as my trembling
legs could bear me, but before I got into the room the dinner-cloth and
pink-and-white service all dragged off upon the floor with a crash and
the new-married couple on their backs in the firegrate, him with the
shovel and tongs and a dish of cucumber across him and a mercy it was
summer-time. "Caroline" I says "be calm," but she catches off my cap and
tears it in her teeth as she passes me, then pounces on the new-married
lady makes her a bundle of ribbons takes her by the two ears and knocks
the back of her head upon the carpet Murder screaming all the time
Policemen running down the street and Wozenham's windows (judge of my
feelings when I came to know it) thrown up and Miss Wozenham calling out
from the balcony with crocodile's tears "It's Mrs. Lirriper been
overcharging somebody to madness--she'll be murdered--I always thought
so--Pleeseman save her!" My dear four of them and Caroline behind the
chiffoniere attacking with the poker and when disarmed prize-fighting
with her double fists, and down and up and up and down and dreadful! But
I couldn't bear to see the poor young creature roughly handled and her
hair torn when they got the better of her, and I says "Gentlemen
Policemen pray remember that her sex is the sex of your mothers and
sisters and your sweethearts, and God bless them and you!" And there she
was sitting down on the ground handcuffed, taking breath against the
skirting-board and them cool with their coats in strips, and all she says
was "Mrs. Lirriper I'm sorry as ever I touched you, for you're a kind
motherly old thing," and it made me think that I had often wished I had
been a mother indeed and how would my heart have felt if I had been the
mother of that girl! Well you know it turned out at the Police-office
that she had done it before, and she had her clothes away and was sent to
prison, and when she was to come out I trotted off to the gate in the
evening with just a morsel of jelly in that little basket of mine to give
her a mite of strength to face the world again, and there I met with a
very decent mother waiting for her son through bad company and a stubborn
one he was with his half-boots not laced. So out came Caroline and I
says "Caroline come along with me and sit down under the wall where it's
retired and eat a little trifle that I have brought with me to do you
good," and she throws her arms round my neck and says sobbing "O why were
you never a mother when there are such mothers as there are!" she says,
and in half a minute more she begins to laugh and says "Did I really tear
your cap to shreds?" and when I told her "You certainly did so Caroline"
she laughed again and said while she patted my face "Then why do you wear
such queer old caps you dear old thing? if you hadn't worn such queer old
caps I don't think I should have done it even then." Fancy the girl!
Nothing could get out of her what she was going to do except O she would
do well enough, and we parted she being very thankful and kissing my
hands, and I nevermore saw or heard of that girl, except that I shall
always believe that a very genteel cap which was brought anonymous to me
one Saturday night in an oilskin basket by a most impertinent young
sparrow of a monkey whistling with dirty shoes on the clean steps and
playing the harp on the Airy railings with a hoop-stick came from
Caroline.

What you lay yourself open to my dear in the way of being the object of
uncharitable suspicions when you go into the Lodging business I have not
the words to tell you, but never was I so dishonourable as to have two
keys nor would I willingly think it even of Miss Wozenham lower down on
the other side of the way sincerely hoping that it may not be, though
doubtless at the same time money cannot come from nowhere and it is not
reason to suppose that Bradshaws put it in for love be it blotty as it
may. It _is_ a hardship hurting to the feelings that Lodgers open their
minds so wide to the idea that you are trying to get the better of them
and shut their minds so close to the idea that they are trying to get the
better of you, but as Major Jackman says to me, "I know the ways of this
circular world Mrs. Lirriper, and that's one of 'em all round it" and
many is the little ruffle in my mind that the Major has smoothed, for he
is a clever man who has seen much. Dear dear, thirteen years have passed
though it seems but yesterday since I was sitting with my glasses on at
the open front parlour window one evening in August (the parlours being
then vacant) reading yesterday's paper my eyes for print being poor
though still I am thankful to say a long sight at a distance, when I hear
a gentleman come posting across the road and up the street in a dreadful
rage talking to himself in a fury and d'ing and c'ing somebody. "By
George!" says he out loud and clutching his walking-stick, "I'll go to
Mrs. Lirriper's. Which is Mrs. Lirriper's?" Then looking round and
seeing me he flourishes his hat right off his head as if I had been the
queen and he says, "Excuse the intrusion Madam, but pray Madam can you
tell me at what number in this street there resides a well-known and much-
respected lady by the name of Lirriper?" A little flustered though I
must say gratified I took off my glasses and courtesied and said "Sir,
Mrs. Lirriper is your humble servant." "Astonishing!" says he. "A
million pardons! Madam, may I ask you to have the kindness to direct one
of your domestics to open the door to a gentleman in search of
apartments, by the name of Jackman?" I had never heard the name but a
politer gentleman I never hope to see, for says he, "Madam I am shocked
at your opening the door yourself to no worthier a fellow than Jemmy
Jackman. After you Madam. I never precede a lady." Then he comes into
the parlours and he sniffs, and he says "Hah! These are parlours! Not
musty cupboards" he says "but parlours, and no smell of coal-sacks." Now
my dear it having been remarked by some inimical to the whole
neighbourhood that it always smells of coal-sacks which might prove a
drawback to Lodgers if encouraged, I says to the Major gently though
firmly that I think he is referring to Arundel or Surrey or Howard but
not Norfolk. "Madam" says he "I refer to Wozenham's lower down over the
way--Madam you can form no notion what Wozenham's is--Madam it is a vast
coal-sack, and Miss Wozenham has the principles and manners of a female
heaver--Madam from the manner in which I have heard her mention you I
know she has no appreciation of a lady, and from the manner in which she
has conducted herself towards me I know she has no appreciation of a
gentleman--Madam my name is Jackman--should you require any other
reference than what I have already said, I name the Bank of
England--perhaps you know it!" Such was the beginning of the Major's
occupying the parlours and from that hour to this the same and a most
obliging Lodger and punctual in all respects except one irregular which I
need not particularly specify, but made up for by his being a protection
and at all times ready to fill in the papers of the Assessed Taxes and
Juries and that, and once collared a young man with the drawing-room
clock under his coat, and once on the parapets with his own hands and
blankets put out the kitchen chimney and afterwards attending the summons
made a most eloquent speech against the Parish before the magistrates and
saved the engine, and ever quite the gentleman though passionate. And
certainly Miss Wozenham's detaining the trunks and umbrella was not in a
liberal spirit though it may have been according to her rights in law or
an act _I_ would myself have stooped to, the Major being so much the
gentleman that though he is far from tall he seems almost so when he has
his shirt-frill out and his frock-coat on and his hat with the curly
brims, and in what service he was I cannot truly tell you my dear whether
Militia or Foreign, for I never heard him even name himself as Major but
always simple "Jemmy Jackman" and once soon after he came when I felt it
my duty to let him know that Miss Wozenham had put it about that he was
no Major and I took the liberty of adding "which you are sir" his words
were "Madam at any rate I am not a Minor, and sufficient for the day is
the evil thereof" which cannot be denied to be the sacred truth, nor yet
his military ways of having his boots with only the dirt brushed off
taken to him in the front parlour every morning on a clean plate and
varnishing them himself with a little sponge and a saucer and a whistle
in a whisper so sure as ever his breakfast is ended, and so neat his ways
that it never soils his linen which is scrupulous though more in quality
than quantity, neither that nor his mustachios which to the best of my
belief are done at the same time and which are as black and shining as
his boots, his head of hair being a lovely white.

It was the third year nearly up of the Major's being in the parlours that
early one morning in the month of February when Parliament was coming on
and you may therefore suppose a number of impostors were about ready to
take hold of anything they could get, a gentleman and a lady from the
country came in to view the Second, and I well remember that I had been
looking out of window and had watched them and the heavy sleet driving
down the street together looking for bills. I did not quite take to the
face of the gentleman though he was good-looking too but the lady was a
very pretty young thing and delicate, and it seemed too rough for her to
be out at all though she had only come from the Adelphi Hotel which would
not have been much above a quarter of a mile if the weather had been less
severe. Now it did so happen my dear that I had been forced to put five
shillings weekly additional on the second in consequence of a loss from
running away full dressed as if going out to a dinner-party, which was
very artful and had made me rather suspicious taking it along with
Parliament, so when the gentleman proposed three months certain and the
money in advance and leave then reserved to renew on the same terms for
six months more, I says I was not quite certain but that I might have
engaged myself to another party but would step down-stairs and look into
it if they would take a seat. They took a seat and I went down to the
handle of the Major's door that I had already began to consult finding it
a great blessing, and I knew by his whistling in a whisper that he was
varnishing his boots which was generally considered private, however he
kindly calls out "If it's you, Madam, come in," and I went in and told
him.